Now multiply the length by the width and divide by infinity...

I have a headache. It is not a health induced headache. Nor is it in any way physiological, or neurological. It is an HGTV headache. For those lay people who are not decorating enthusiasts, I am referring to Home & Garden Television. I watch their station with a nearly religious zeal. I do this because of a condition I have which has been diagnosed by my husband as O.C.D. (Obsessive Compulsive Decorating). He swears that if we are in a hotel room for longer than 24 hours, I will decorate it. Is it so wrong to want to add some fresh flowers to a room?? I would refute his allegations, but the evidence is in the paint. We have owned our current house for 8 years and I have painted and redecorated the dining room six times. The downstairs bathroom has been redone 4 times and three out of four of the upstairs bedrooms have been repainted at least 3-4 times. Oh, and the family room has been redone five times. I have redone the kitchen cabinets twice. Once, when Derek was away in Japan, I decided to paint our bedroom…in the middle of the night. Thank heaven for 24 hour Wal-marts. You get the gist.

Now, I can’t blame any of the HGTV television shows directly, but I do feel that they deliberately led me to my current plight. The thing is, I keep watching these shows where some trendy designer checks out some poor schmucks real estate nightmare and then comes back two days later, whips out a laptop and procedes to show the home owner a fabulous new, Technicolor, 3D…practically holographic depiction of the perfect solution to all of their décor woes. With the slightest click of the mouse, the walls change color, other walls dissolve to unveil a brand new dining room and floor coloring changes with digital flourish.

My O.C.D. little brain went into overdrive the first time I saw this wondrous marvel of decorating technology. I wanted that! I could feel the décor lust kick in. Since that first tease, I have poured hungrily over programs that promised the same miracles for at least two years.

As spring hit this year, my brain only had room for the yard. For months I have decorated the yard, weeded the yard, entertained in the yard and relaxed in the yard. Like a kitten who has had way too much attention paid to it by a 3 year old tormentor, you could almost feel the house breathe a sigh of relief at my obvious distraction, but we have recently been hit by an early fall and as the temperature dropped, my thoughts have turned back to the interior and all of the things I have neglected. After a three day HGTV/DIY binge, I lost my battle with reason.

I was at Office Max having some senior portrait proof magazines bound when I saw it, a beautiful box boasting a glossy photo of a stunning home promised me that if I had their software, I could transform my living space. Deep in my soul I knew that if I just had that software, I could make my home look like the one on the cover. My daughter had mentioned that her husband bought her a home decorating program for her birthday. If she could do it, I knew I could too! I should have remembered that her husband is a software engineer.

I knew the box felt too heavy when I picked it up and cradled it close to my heart, giddy with anticipation, but I was in deep denial and didn’t question it’s heft. I took it home and eagerly slit through the clear seal spanning the opening to the box.

It is my belief that not mentioning that this software comes with a SEVEN HUNDRED page manual is a gross oversight on the part of HGTV and their software developers. This is a highly relevant piece of information that could have significantly impacted my decision regarding this particular purchase.

Taking a deep, bracing breath, I decided that as a computer literate, tech savvy women, I would not be daunted by this minor setback, and setting the monstrous manual aside I confidently installed the software and opened up the design program, eager to begin creating my new and undoubtedly fabulous 1920's inspired, art deco library. After wading through their “House Design Wizard” and lying through my teeth about dimensions and roof type and basement wall depth and so on, my first design screen popped up. It looked nothing like my house. In fact it was just a big, square, white, wasteland. I felt my optimism start to plummet. Steeling my resolve, I opened the manual.

I would like to suggest to HGTV that in addition to mentioning the 700 page manual on the front of the box, they should also put, in a large, highlighted box…in bold type…that in order to use this software, they would advise first securing an advanced degree…preferably a doctorate...in architectural engineering. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING!? There are 58 chapters, all pointing out in graphic detail, that I am completely inadequate in every conceivable way to the task of designing a room with their software! Who knew Tolstoy wrote tech manuals! I am not averse to the idea of going back to college, but I didn’t really want to have to do it simply to be able to use a bit of decorating software. And in case you are thinking "oh, well it's probably only a hundred pages long and in 7 different languages", you are mistaken. Every word on every page is in English. Completely unintelligible English, but English none-the-less.

After careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that it will be significantly cheaper to hire a professional designer to bring their laptop to my house and show me THEIR beautiful 3D designs than it will be to pay 8-9 years of tuition to get my doctorate. Because I am a stubborn woman, I will take a crack at using this software, but don’t be surprised if my house ends up looking like a Salvador Dali painting.